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2024-07-27 16:00

angelo

Registered: Jul 2024
Posts: 13

Howdy

Hi there. It's my first post here, so lemme introduce myself. I'm angelo, or æn.d͡ʒə.loʊ, or unj, a founder of KSKPD, the group behind polish unesco application.

I'm in process of researching some early-computing stuff, including an idea planted by @Krill and @bitfat, that the default narrative of "In the beginning it was a cracker scene, that developed into demoscene later because $REASONS" might be worth challenging.

I might be asking in various sub-forums questions around data on this site, but while I used to be a part of demoscene as a coder (1995+), I also owned PC exclusively since my first computer in like 1990. I skipped 8bit phase completely, so please bare with me, if the questions sound obvious or straight-up outrageously naive :)

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2024-07-27 17:00

hedning

Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 4694

I found this paper interesting: http://widerscreen.fi/numerot/2014-1-2/crackers-became-us-demos..

2024-07-27 17:05

angelo

Registered: Jul 2024
Posts: 13

Quote: I found this paper interesting: http://widerscreen.fi/numerot/2014-1-2/crackers-became-us-demos..

that is unfortunately exactly the very paper I was referring to above :)

I don't say it's not interesting. It is very interesting, BUT: the paper says:

Quote:

Most of the authors who have written on the topic were not part of the original scene themselves, so they have had to rely on second-hand sources where conflicting details have already been left out. My aim in this paper is to trace the origins of the story and offer a new perspective to the various reasons that led to the gradual separation of the two scenes.

So sure, this paper is better in a sense it relies on first-hand sources. It's based tho on few (6, s-i-x) interviews, and it's hard to claim the group is representative in any statistical sense, and claiming that you can draw conclusions from 6 sources is in my humble opinion a bold move.

2024-07-27 17:54

Jetboy

Registered: Jul 2006
Posts: 265

So you are one responsible for that unesco crap.
Scene did not need that. We were fine without you.

I'm pissed that people like you are stepping on a work of thousand enthusiasts for personal profits, writing bullshit pseudoscienentific papers, sucking government donations and setting up bullshit studies that teach nothing useful.

disrespect

2024-07-27 18:19

4gentE

Registered: Mar 2021
Posts: 178

Historians, for example, base much of their arguments on evidence and stories that are equally unverifiable. A good historian will tell you that the best they can hope for is to tell a good, and relatively accurate story. All cultural production, to a certain extent, is a kind of myth-making. The trick is to do it responsibly, I think. Note that when I say “cultural production” above, I include all the social sciences and humanities. For me, academic production is also cultural production. (Trevor Paglen)

2024-07-27 18:38

ws

Registered: Apr 2012
Posts: 248

I came in as late as 1987 into the C64 stuff. In those days, there was, from what i heard, no talk of a "scene" (Except for Police and the press who classify groups of individuals as a scene). All that was there, was a scene in a criminal sense, as if you would talk of a drug-user-scene "drogenszene" or something close to organised crime, as the pressure from police was extremely high these days.
The only connection point between (the offline, non-bbs) people were contact-books, long lists of swapping contacts who you were supposed to send and get your disks from. I would guess that 90% of all the swapping was offline, via mail. Notable: having non-gaming or non cracking-related stuff on these swapping disks was considered lame. I personally remember seeing some first high class demos popping up on magazine disks in late 87, and that stuff always left the people i knew like "what? no game? boring!".
And i believe all the major first demo-effects were discovered by crackers.
If there were demo-people who made just demos, there simply would be no incentive to do so, because the driving factor behind the (offline) spreading was warez. This is also reflected in that era, when you had up to 5 intros from different groups infront some imported game. You wanted your name in there and you wanted your group represented, and you added a contact address! BBS'ing was super expensive and blueboxing was a dangerous thing to do.
So maybe there were very few individuals who released early "demos", but those were quite certainly not those who started the main wave of intro making in a sense that we know today. It is most likely some coincidental parallel development, but as far as i know and remember, there was no reason to make an intro or a demo unless you wanted attention from the crackers. (And we wanted that attention, badly. To get the new stuff faster. But we didn't know how to code.)
This is my view of it as a simple "user", "consumer" and then swapper. In the beginning i wasn't even in a group (none of the guys i knew were) but swapping (via mail, in germany only) already.
And few years later on the amiga, it was full-on commercial piracy. 100 disk/month abo for x amount of money. Thats actually how and why we then started an amiga group. Commercial import and then spread in our area (for free, to look cool, to collect, mainly.) So many disks, never played most of it, just keep em coming. Until the day the police showed up. That brought a horrific screeching halt to all these activities among my buddies. Soon after, everybody quit and went on to the PC, as simple "consumers" again (i started my first job, so i quit gaming and PC-ing entirely, except for making music).
We were like roughly 20 people.

2024-07-27 19:15

4gentE

Registered: Mar 2021
Posts: 178

I’ve heard at least 10 or 20 recounts like this one above. My own memories are similar. So, I think the argument that Markku’s paper relies on only 6 interviews is kinda irrelevant. I don’t think the revision of “demoscene emanated from crackerscene” approximation (common knowledge) will happen. I think You’re wasting your time. But do go on, try and prove me (or should I say most of us) wrong.

2024-07-27 20:21

Pex Mahoney Tufvesson

Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 51

I don't think there was a cracking scene prior this demo from 1972: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naGntYNTSQM
Imho, I think there is a bigger picture somewhere that we need to look for before coming to conclusions on the origin of the demo scene. / Pex

2024-07-27 20:26

hedning

Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 4694

Quote: I don't think there was a cracking scene prior this demo from 1972: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naGntYNTSQM
Imho, I think there is a bigger picture somewhere that we need to look for before coming to conclusions on the origin of the demo scene. / Pex

Oh, please, mr. Tufvesson. Don't be silly. Cervantes had to write a follow up to Don Quixote as an answer to all pirate copies of the original book that was made in the early 1600's. ;)

2024-07-27 21:18

4gentE

Registered: Mar 2021
Posts: 178

Oh yeah? What about when Moses CRACKED the tablets?

2024-07-27 21:36

ws

Registered: Apr 2012
Posts: 248

All this stuff brought up a zillion of memories, oof my head, and there is one particular detail that is to consider about "first rasterbars on Amiga": while the Amiga 1000 (!) was introduced in 1985, it would *hardly* be the beginning of the great "Amiga Era", because: a complete system would set you back $3500 in todays money, affordable maybe, if you are a rich kid. But the Amiga 500 wasn't out until spring of 1987 and it would also take a year or two until it had a real lift-off, which i personally remember around 1988, peaking in 1989 - thats actually when i got the one i still have, and i had to buy it second hand.
Back in the days, those systems (Computer, Drive, Monitor) were as expensive as your hardcore gaming rig today. So, yes, systems were available as per market introduction, but sold unit numbers for relevant buildup of user numbers/hunger for software always had a little delay (in months).